I've been working on a 2D exploration/platforming game in the Metroid/Castlevania style for awhile now, with the goal of having procedurally-generated levels. Progress on that front proceeded nicely until I got to the point where I had to figure out how to enforce needing a powerup to bypass some obstacle. Then I got a job and the entire project stalled. Now I'm thinking of returning to the project and setting the whole procedural mapgen aspect to the side for a bit. I have most of the engine coded up, so why not try for a hand-made map instead? So I doodled this map. I'd like some feedback on the overall design. Note that it's not remotely drawn to scale, so here's the intended player path, as I see it: The player lands on the far left side, and proceeds to the right. They encounter the moat, and am unable to jump high enough to cross it. Exploring more, they find the cave system underneath their landing zone (or perhaps they found this before the moat; either way), and find the high-jump upgrade. With this they can cross the moat and enter the base. But whoops! A trapdoor opens beneath them, dropping them bown into the abyss. They quickly find that they can't jump high enough to go upwards, and one of the passages they can reach is blocked by a solid barrier. They find a nearby room containing a boss and an upgrade that lets them break the barrier. This lets them explore more of the abyssal area. To the upper right they find a room with magma pooled in the floor and a ledge they can't reach. Going across the shaft they originally fell down, they find a massive underground pool, which they can't navigate very well. However, they can make it to a room containing an upgrade that lets them move freely in water! And while they can't make it through the locked door at the bottom of the lake, they can go upwards into the moat they crossed over earlier on. They find a secret passage in that moat that they can now reach, letting them go back into the base. This time they're able to explore more of the base. They fight their way across it, beating up some machinery and goons. Eventually they find the boiler room, which includes an armor upgrade that protects them from heat, and an elevator leading down into the abyss again. Now they can go through that hot room they found earlier, and down into a long corridor running beneath the entire sector. They fight their way through this, and eventually face down a boss to get some pitons. With these, they can climb along walls and walk along ceilings (barring overhangs). The door in the bottom of the lake unlocks, and they can now make it across the trapdoor in the base that defeated them so long ago. From here, about all they can do is go up, climbing the mountain the base is built into. They proceed from the base into the aerie, an open, mountainous area with some tricky platforming. At the top, they face down a boss for a jetpack, which lets them fly! Now they have to traverse down a tunnel through the mountain, putting their new movement capabilities to the test to traverse several difficult rooms. This leads them back down into the base yet again, where they can fight the final boss of the game. Naturally he's a load-bearing boss, and the base starts collapsing, so the player then has to make their way out of the base and back to the landing zone so they can escape. Does this seem reasonable? I've including a few nooks and crannies to hide non-essential powerups, and the actual maps should include more (in general, the maps are going to get stretched out and have more filler inserted; there's not really much actual exploration to be done with the map as it stands currently). I don't want the map to be too small, but similarly it can't get too big or the project becomes unfeasible. As it stands I need to make tilesets and scenery for the following areas:

• Landing zone
• Cave beneath landing zone
• Moat and watery abyss
• Base
• Magma abyss
• Aerie outside
• Aerie caves (possibly the same as landing zone caves)

That seems like a lot to me! Adding more zones on top of that will just make things harder. Any feedback would be appreciated!

Interesting diagram you have here. I looked at your world map. But the zones you wrote do not corrispond to the areas for which they represent. Could you verify this for us please. Us meaning the Gamedev forum.

Another thing. The word Piton. Are you trying to write the word Piston or something intirely new for your game world? Just want to clearify this as well.

You have mentioned new abilities for skills and sword or whip action. But all you have mention was boss and upgrades.

From the get go as for the first part of the area you should make the first boss a sub boss or a guard for the base. Unless your making the boss character flow into your story some how that will make the player think bosses area through out your game instead sub bosses and bosses afterward.

Your first discription of your lay out seems quite short. At least a 2 to 2 1/2 hour game. Due to the fact that your players have no knowledge of where to go.
Think about the replay value for your players. I do enjoy both game titles you have mentioned for your game design. But if that is all there is. And I know you have already told us that you will be stretching out your map for further exploration or level up if any for your main character to overcome the boss's for your storyline.

All in all the map is unique. But make some borders for the map so it won't confuse the players of how far or how short your map is. I had to read over a few times to figure out where your character will be walking through.

What type and how many creatures or metal beings are you willing to add or will add for the game to flow for replay value, action, storyline, new characters if any that you will meet along the way (optional).

If you need help with any ideas, suggestions please feel free to drop a PM to me. Like your ideas and concepts.

Now that I think of it you could make your first creature a boss. As you have already done. Like a one to two story guard like metal being of some sort? But thats just my two cents.

Look forward on your new updates.

Ghostknight

Apologies, I should have explained the overall game concept more. This is a sci-fi setting; the protagonist is wandering around in damaged power armor, relying on melee strikes for combat and dodging for defense. The plot, in short, is that they get shot down while on patrol, land near the base that attacked them, and need to infiltrate it to find out what's going on (and presumably, stop it).

This is intentionally a short game. If I make it longer, then I'm worried I won't be able to finish it. I'd rather a short, good game than a long, sprawling and unfinished one. Ultimately this isn't going to be sold anyway (I've open-sourced the project) so I'm not worried about salability.

"Pitons" are climbing gear: little handholds that you can hammer into the rock of the cliff you're scaling. This is a real word that I'm adopting for a slightly more versatile (and much faster) sci-fi use. If you have a suggestion for a better upgrade that would allow scaling walls and "walking" along ceilings without being reliant on magnets, gravity manipulation, etc. then by all means, let me hear it!

As for boss placement, it's reasonable to expect the first boss to be a gate guardian of some kind. However, I don't want the player to arrive at the moat, find themselves unable to cross, and then immediately fight the boss that lets them cross. That's missing the point of the game style, which is that you should encounter the barrier to progress before you find the item that lets you surmount that barrier.

Finally, the actual nature of bosses is intentionally not stated right now. Again, this is something where I have to be careful to keep my concepts from exceeding my abilities to make interesting fights (and graphics!). I suspect most bosses will be of similar scale as the player, though I do want to have a couple of giants.

Thank you for the clearification. I see what you mean in the better light as it were.

For the Piton you could use a mechanized grappling hook or the over the shoulder throw up in the air movement. But this would slow the game play real quick. I like the idea of your piton concept. Yeah that would work. Its a real situation that deals with the real world or the gaming world.

Ghostknight

The concepts here can be described as Keys and Locks.

Although these aren't litteral "keys", they function the same way. the player can't proceed until they get the right "key". However, the Keys here also give the player other abilities that they can find useful.

As for the Piton idea. Scientists are working on a material based on the Gecko lizard's foot. These lizards can run over apparently smoth surfaces (like highly polished metal or even glass), even upside down.

How they work is that extremely tiny hairs (getting down to the molecular scale here) on the bottom of their feet attract the surface with a (indiviually tiny) force called the Van Der Waals force. This force is enough to hold the gecko to the surface.

Scalled up, this could allow even a human to cling to a surface like a gecko wihtout the need for pitons or such.

Scientists have already been able to make small patches of an artificial material that demonstrates that it can be manufactured. So in a sci-fi setting, it is perfectly reasonable that suits (or gloves/shoes) can be made of this kind of stuff.

Ha, excellent. I'd forgotten about the manmade gecko hairs. I'll definitely have to co-opt that. Thanks!

And yeah, the keys-that-aren't-keys and locks-that-aren't-locks conceptualizing is basically spot-on. The interesting bit from my perspective is figuring out how to generate the locks so the player can look at them and say "Oh, I need to be able to do X to get past here" without always re-using the same set-piece lock (or small set of locks).

For your key to lock idea:

You can use different shapes for each key or map to make the player think of where to go next? But that would be to obvious now wouldn't it? Hmm. Probably different source material could be only used for X key and X Lock?